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In the case or a court appointed receiver, the receiver can pretty well charge what they want to charge and pass the cost directly to the owners. The owners will have no say about it. An owners cost for receivership could well be more then the cost for the owners to bail the association out with an assessment.
Receivership is not road one wants to go down no matter how good/easy it might sound.
You are absolutely correct !! I am not encouraging receivership, just provided a simple answer to the OP's question.
You are "assuming" because the OP "heard" that a board member said that the HOA will go bankrupt in two years because of an issue with a pool expense??
Has the OP gone to a board meeting and asked any questions?
Has the OP requested a copy of the financials which are normally issued once a month and are available to all owners?
Has the OP spoken to a board member concerning their concerns?
I'm sure there is a property manager, has the OP spoken to them?
I'm guessing the answer is NO to all of the above.......
Longislander obviously you have no hands on experience with a HOA, the OP and most of the posters "assume" there is a big issue based upon here say. Based upon the OP's posts Longislander why would you even assume something crooked is going on or the board members have created a conspiracy. I cannot imagine an expense with a pool SO GREAT that it would drag a HOA under. Worse come to worse a special assessment would be voted on, if turned down and the issue could not be fixed just out of the normal HOA fees the pool would be shut down.
You sound like one of those entrenched HOA board members who can't take the heat. In my 16 years of experience with HOAs, I have found that they morph into dictatorships in which board members forget where the dues come from and forget they are responsible to the other property owners. Sometimes board members are folks who have lost their regular jobs or are retired. They miss the authority they once had during their careers, so they try to reassert themselves on the HOA board. They hide financials and other information from the people who supply the money. They become abusive to community members and don't want to take questions. They deliberately make meetings so unpleasant that homeowners will walk away and let them continue their poor management. Because they work for free, they think they are entitled to run the community without transparency.
All I can say is that the OP is probably dealing with this kind of board and he/she is starting to get frustrated. If the board was responsive, the OP wouldn't be posting on here. When that happens, you have to gather likeminded homeowners, vote out the old board and bring in some fresh faces.
Look up removal of board members. You probably have something in your bylaws about that.
In addition to Longislander2's...I'd add an insite from a friend who seems to be on the mark. Some board members are people who just never really rose to what they felt their status should have been...and now they have the money and the "power" and will not let the opportunity slip away. And then there are always the ones just looking for a leader/sometimes a bully so they can be the good little follower on the board.
But, again, we've been part of many great associations. And, sadly, it can take just the one bad apple that makes one really really ill to put one off apples ever more.
Generally BOD Members (one to all) can be recalled. It is time consuming and must be done in a very strict order. It is open to many roadblocks and challenges so quite often it never gets off the ground or it fails.
The better way is mount an election campaign/effort for several candidates and get them elected to the BOD. In one HOA our first go around was to get enough elected to the BOD to be sure the existing President could not get re-elected as President. We were successful. We did it all over again the next election to be sure a few others (including the ex-President) did not even get re-elected to the BOD.
We found that many would not support a recall even when they did not like the way things were. They felt a recall was messy and divisive.
Bottom line is it took hard work and two election cycles to get a BOD that basically voted the way we wanted.
Here's an explanation -- used by The NY Times' columnist Paul Krugman for another purpose -- that describes pretty well what happens to a lot of HOA boards:
Ibn Khaldun "was a 14th-century Islamic philosopher who basically invented what we would now call the social sciences. And one insight he had, based on the history of his native North Africa, was that there was a rhythm to the rise and fall of dynasties.
"Desert tribesmen, he argued, always have more courage and social cohesion than settled, civilized folk, so every once in a while they will sweep in and conquer lands whose rulers have become corrupt and complacent. They create a new dynasty — and, over time, become corrupt and complacent themselves, ready to be overrun by a new set of barbarians."
We found that many would not support a recall even when they did not like the way things were. They felt a recall was messy and divisive.
Bottom line is it took hard work and two election cycles to get a BOD that basically voted the way we wanted.
Sounds a lot like the US Senate and House of Representatives. Too bad that we (as Americans) will never get what we want with those crooks in Washington.
You sound like one of those entrenched HOA board members who can't take the heat. In my 16 years of experience with HOAs, I have found that they morph into dictatorships in which board members forget where the dues come from and forget they are responsible to the other property owners. Sometimes board members are folks who have lost their regular jobs or are retired. They miss the authority they once had during their careers, so they try to reassert themselves on the HOA board. They hide financials and other information from the people who supply the money. They become abusive to community members and don't want to take questions. They deliberately make meetings so unpleasant that homeowners will walk away and let them continue their poor management. Because they work for free, they think they are entitled to run the community without transparency.
All I can say is that the OP is probably dealing with this kind of board and he/she is starting to get frustrated. If the board was responsive, the OP wouldn't be posting on here. When that happens, you have to gather likeminded homeowners, vote out the old board and bring in some fresh faces.
Well you are correct on one count, I am on a HOA Board but your other assessments are BS. The biggest issues we have is getting owners involved. We post our board meetings weeks in advance both on site and by E-mail, guess how many owners show up for the board meeting (maybe a couple at best) If we make a bad decision, God help us!
No one hides anything, you don't have to hide, no one looks unless something hits a nerve with a few owners. Why should we hide anything, it's no skin off of our nose. Most of us are just looking to protect our investment.
Hey bring in a new board if you can find someone to run, someone that actually will show up at a board meeting, Good Luck!
Anyone who doesn't like the board has the opportunity to get on themselves. It's easy to complain from the side lines.
But who has the courage to get on the front line. And indentured servants are a thing of the past. No one is accountable for you because you pay dues. Board members pay dues also. You are not paying them and have NO Authority over them.
Any one who tries to boss me around for free can kiss ..., and take the job themselves.
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